Hello from Mars

At least for the crazy part of humanity known as "Eurovision fans", this album is a real heaven sent. It features all 26 songs from the 2003 edition of the ESC, organized in Riga (of all impossible places). For those whose post-Soviet geography needs some honing, Riga is the national capital of tiny Latvia at the eastern shores of the equally tiny Baltic Sea. At least from a Euro-fan perspective, 2003 was a good year for the contest.

The main scandals were created by Tatu, the phoney lesbian duo from Russia which requested to perform nude (request denied - it was frivolous anyway). For about a week, all of Europe seriously feared that these teenage girls would do something *really* lewd on stage. Which, of course, they didn't. Their constant attacks on the city of Riga made the local audience boo them, however.

Another classic was Latvia's "Hello from Mars", which apparently was later used in TV commercials for the Mars chocolate bar. Polish Ich Troje, performing an anachronistic peace song in Polish, German and Russian, was another attraction. We also fondly remember the Austrian entry, performed by a comic actor backed by a motionless cartoon cow spouting an electrical guitar! Unless I'm mistaken, one of the Belgian performers wasn't allowed to enter Latvia when it turned out that she was a right-wing extremist with a history of violence. Strangely for nationalists, the Belgian band sang their song in an imaginary language...

There were also a number of super-flops. For the first time ever, Great Britain (the leading pop nation in the world, alongside the U.S.) came last with *no* points. The German entry had completely impossible lyrics, including the double entendre "Let's get happy, let's be gay". While many Euro-fans are gay (there's an entire gay subculture around this contest), something tells me *this* was unintentional. The various ex-Yugoslav copies of Britney Spears (today, ex-copies) were also suitably embarrassing.

But then, it's absurd stuff like this which makes ESC so entertaining, isn't it? ;-)

And the winner is...Turkey!